Council for Democracy

In July, 1940, Henry Luce, C. D. Jackson, Freda Kirchwey, Raymond Gram Swing, Robert Sherwood, John Gunther, Leonard Lyons, Ernest Angell and Carl Joachim Friedrich established the Council for Democracy. According to Kai Bird the organization "became an effective and highly visible counterweight to the isolation rhetoric" to America First Committee led by Charles Lindbergh and Robert E. Wood: "With financial support from Douglas and Luce, Jackson, a consummate propagandist, soon had a media operation going which was placing anti-Hitler editorials and articles in eleven hundred newspapers a week around the country."

During the 1940 Presidential Election the isolationist Chicago Tribune accused the Council for Democracy of being under the control of foreigners: "The sponsors of the so-called Council for Democracy... are attempting to force this country into a military adventure on the side of England." George Seldes also attacked the organization arguing that it was being mainly financed by Henry Luce.

However, according to The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45, a secret report written by leading operatives of the British Security Coordination (Roald Dahl, H. Montgomery Hyde, Giles Playfair, Gilbert Highet and Tom Hill), William Stephenson and BSC played an important role in the Council for Democracy: "William Stephenson decided to take action on his own initiative. He instructed the recently created SOE Division to declare a covert war against the mass of American groups which were organized throughout the country to spread isolationism and anti-British feeling. In the BSC office plans were drawn up and agents were instructed to put them into effect. It was agreed to seek out all existing pro-British interventionist organizations, to subsidize them where necessary and to assist them in every way possible. It was counter-propaganda in the strictest sense of the word. After many rapid conferences the agents went out into the field and began their work. Soon they were taking part in the activities of a great number of interventionist organizations, and were giving to many of them which had begun to flag and to lose interest in their purpose, new vitality and a new lease of life. The following is a list of some of the larger ones... The League of Human Rights, Freedom and Democracy... The American Labor Committee to Aid British Labor... The Ring of Freedom, an association led by the publicist Dorothy Thompson, the Council for Democracy; the American Defenders of Freedom, and other such societies were formed and supported to hold anti-isolationist meetings which branded all isolationists as Nazi-lovers."

Raymond Gram Swing defended the organisation by arguing: "As first conceived, the Council for Democracy was simply to be a co-ordinating body to pull together the work being done by a number of small organizations. But as it got under way, it became clear that a central organization supplanting many of the smaller ones would be more effective, and that is what the Council became.... Europe was at war; the United States was not. The war in Europe was one of the least complicated wars to understand; it was one of both conquest and ideology, waged by fascists. Democracy in Europe was in the most dire peril, which meant that in time it might well be in dire peril in the United States, too. The need for a Council dedicated to the preservation of democracy was incontestable. It had work to do; and within its means, as I now look back on it, it did that work. There was some indifference to democracy in the United States, as I assume there always has been. There was little outright fascism, but an inclination among not a few to be tolerant of it, which was the equivalent of being indifferent to the defense of democracy."

Primary Sources

(1) The Secret History of British Intelligence in the Americas, 1940-45 (1945)

These warnings went unheeded, and accordingly William Stephenson decided to take action on his own initiative. He instructed the recently created SOE Division to declare a covert war against the mass of American groups which were organized throughout the country to spread isolationism and anti-British feeling. In the BSC office plans were drawn up and agents were instructed to put them into effect. It was agreed to seek out all existing pro-British interventionist organizations, to subsidize them where necessary and to assist them in every way possible. It was counter-propaganda in the strictest sense of the word. After many rapid conferences the agents went out into the field and began their work. Soon they were taking part in the activities of a great number of interventionist organizations, and were giving to many of them which had begun to flag and to lose interest in their purpose, new vitality and a new lease of life. The following is a list of some of the larger ones:

1. The Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League to Champion Human Rights. This society organized boycotts of all firms dealing in German goods, published exposures of Germans and pro-German Americans in the USA, picketed isolationist meetings and issued a periodical bulletin on Nazi activities in America. As an example of its work, at an America First rally featuring Lindbergh as speaker, the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League distributed leaflets showing Lindbergh in amicable conversation with the be-medalled Erhard Milch of the Luftwaffe.

2. The League of Human Rights, Freedom and Democracy. This was a committee aimed at winning the support of organized labour. It had branches in over 200 cities. Its honorary president was William Green, head of the American Federation of Labor; its president, Matthew Woll, vice-president of the American Federation of Labor; and its vice-president, David Dubinsky of the International Ladies' Garment Workers Union. Its theme was that American labour owed it to itself to assist British labour in the fight against Hitler. One of its best achievements was the distribution of a pamphlet contrasting Nazi statements of principle with those of distinguished Americans, under the title of Their Aims - Our Aims. Sample copies of this were sent to 4,800 branch offices of AFL unions, with such success that over 8,000,000 were eventually distributed in the United States alone and 2,000,000 more in Latin America. In addition, it sent selected news items to 400 labour papers and magazines every week.

3. The American Labor Committee to Aid British Labor was another affiliate of the American Federation of Labor, also under the chairmanship of Matthew Woll. It held mass meetings, sponsored radio broadcasts and distributed Aid British Labor buttons, Help Smash Dictators circulars, posters, etc. These two committees were particularly useful in the period when much of organized labour was still anti-British because it followed, or was attracted to, pro-Soviet isolationists. It was impossible to do anything with large segments of the Congress of Industrial Organizations before June 1941, but its powerful rival, the American Federation of Labor, was thus induced to side with the British.

4. The Ring of Freedom, an association led by the publicist Dorothy Thompson, the Council for Democracy; the American Defenders of Freedom, and other such societies were formed and supported to hold anti-isolationist meetings which branded all isolationists as Nazi-lovers.

(2) Raymond Gram Swing, Good Evening (1964)

To many, the aims of the Council for Democracy will sound platitudinous today, for the dedication of those in public political life to democratic standards and practices, and the public insistence on them, has widened and deepened since 1940. Only in some sections of the country, where the full equality of the Negro is still obstructed, is there something of a lag. I find on reading over the publications of the Council for Democracy that they were outspoken and true to the American ideal, but I am somewhat surprised to realize now that they were called for at all. But they were. In 1940, in particular, many Americans were still so isolationist as to think tolerantly or even approvingly of National Socialism in Germany and fascism in Italy. And they were ready to see democracy languish in this country and defeated abroad if only American isolation could be preserved.

I do not remember the preliminary personal conversations that led to the formation of the Council for Democracy. The initiative must have come from Henry Luce, for he was ready to lend the services of C. D. Jackson, vice-president of Time, Inc., as its chief executive for a year, and to contribute 525,000 to get the Council started. Leonard Lyons wrote in his column of July 30, 1940: "A group will meet at the Waldorf today for the purpose of coordinating all the separate committees which have been formed in defense of democracy. The group is composed of Henry Luce, Raymond Gram Swing, John Gunther, Freda Kirchwey, and Robert Sherwood." The list must be far from complete. But that Waldorf meeting, in the best American tradition, led to the formation of an organization which, in the prewar and war years, stoutly and effectively propagated the principles of democracy.

As first conceived, the Council for Democracy was simply to be a co-ordinating body to pull together the work being done by a number of small organizations. But as it got under way, it became clear that a central organization supplanting many of the smaller ones would be more effective, and that is what the Council became. Later, after the United States entered the war, it became for a time the Council for Victory. Of both organizations, I was chairman of the board, and, for a time, honorary chairman. I was not in a position to devote as much time as the administration of such an organization needs, even if adequately staffed. The hard work during the first year was done by C. D. Jackson. Then Ernest Angell, the New York attorney, took over. Professor Carl Friedrich, of Harvard, was a faithful and inspired leader in his particular field of publishing studies on the workings of democracies written by specialists.

He faded from the picture after American entry into the war, simply due to his own German origin. The roster of the executive committee of the Council included as distinguished a body of civic leaders as I can recall belonging to any private organization. The names covered two pages in fine print, and the members came from educational and religious institutions, journalism, the arts and sciences, motion pictures and radio, organized labor, the law, business and finance, and patriotic and social-welfare agencies. One could hardly conjure up a group of more certain patriotism and reliable judgment.

Europe was at war; the United States was not. The war in Europe was one of the least complicated wars to understand; it was one of both conquest and ideology, waged by fascists. Democracy in Europe was in the most dire peril, which meant that in time it might well be in dire peril in the United States, too. The need for a Council dedicated to the preservation of democracy was incontestable. It had work to do; and within its means, as I now look back on it, it did that work. There was some indifference to democracy in the United States, as I assume there always has been. There was little outright fascism, but an inclination among not a few to be tolerant of it, which was the equivalent of being indifferent to the defense of democracy.